


sleepwalking with the lonely

by jinxfabray



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Begin again au, F/M, Kid Fic, M/M, sort of, the movie not the song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinxfabray/pseuds/jinxfabray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Taylor broke up with me.” Zayn glances at him and keeps on drinking, so Harry takes a deep breath and adds, “And she’s going away on tour all across the country tomorrow.”</p>
<p>There’s a moment of silence, and Harry can see Zayn’s brain working overtime, trying to think of something to say. He can even see it in his eyes, the moment in which he realizes there is just nothing to say. Nothing at all. He can’t call her a bitch, because Harry loves her and she’s not a bitch anyway, and he can’t say Harry’s better off, because, well. Harry loves her. It’s too soon for saying anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleepwalking with the lonely

**Author's Note:**

> \+ you know how some people stress clean? i stress write fic, and i had a VERY STRESSFUL final recently so this happened. it hasn't truly been beta'd by anyone but me so all mistakes are my own and i'm sorry about them. 
> 
> \+ title from tell me if you wanna go home, from the being again ost
> 
> \+ as always, thanks to sara for being a pal and reading parts of this over.
> 
> \+ special thanks to sharon. this fic is for you, for holding my hand throughout all of my fic hardships and being an absolute sweetheart always. you're my ziall muse, forever and ever, and i really hope you like this.

It's not that he doesn't think Taylor deserves to succeed because she does, she really does. It's just that he always thought that he'd be there with her when she reached the top.

Instead, he’s walking the streets of a city he doesn’t know on his own, dragging a suitcase that’s definitely too heavy for someone who only stayed for two weeks. He doesn’t blame her, though, she didn’t know she’d be going on tour so soon, and he gets where she’s coming from, long distance wasn’t ever a thing they wanted to go back to, and it’s exactly the reason why Harry chose to come with her while she recorded her album. It’s sensible and he understands. It doesn’t mean it’s not making him feel like utter shit, though.

Maybe he should just go home. His idea when he left the apartment was to get himself a hotel room and get a flight back home sometime during the week, but the more he thinks about it, the clearer it becomes that there is no point in staying when he could just spend all he’s got and get himself a flight back to England tomorrow morning. Be done with it as soon as possible, go back home, hide in his room, and wait for his heart to heal and for everyone to stop asking him about her. That sounds like the perfect plan. All he needs is a place to spend the night, and if he’s gonna get a last minute ticket, then a hotel is out of the question. So Zayn’s will be, even if he was really looking forward to getting at least another couple of hours before having to explain it to anyone.

It’s not hard to get to his place, luckily, since Harry has an uncanny ability for getting lost, and it’s a relief to hear his voice when he rings the doorbell. When he sees him coming downstairs to open the door for him, Harry feels a weight being lifted off his shoulders, and he realizes being alone in a hotel room would have been a terrible, terrible idea. He’d much rather cry his heart out in the arms of someone, instead of doing it holding a pillow and a bottle of something he can’t afford.

“Hey,” Zayn smiles, but it falters and falls quickly when he sees the look on his face. It’s nice to know he looks as shitty as he feels. His gaze drops to the suitcase, and then his expression turns truly grim. “Come on in, then. I think I have vodka somewhere.”

Harry follows him inside, his suitcase banging loudly as it hits the steps, but Zayn doesn’t even say anything. It’s only two floors, and he lets him in first, closing the door behind him and leaning against it, letting Harry have a moment to take it all in.

It’s hard not to think of Zayn’s house back in England, that amazingly huge place with more rooms than people in it, always shiny and clean, with windows everywhere so that it was always full of sunshine and fresh air. It’s the first thing that comes to Harry’s mind as he looks around the place, in the short three seconds it takes to be done with that. It’s a room, with a bed, and a semi kitchen on a side. There’s a door he figures leads to a bathroom, and there’s so much stuff piled up that he takes the first couple of steps in fear he’ll break something. For some reason, it makes him terribly sad, but then Zayn speaks.

“Welcome to my home,” he says, and when Harry turns to look at him, he’s smiling, wide and bright, and looking at the tiny space between those four walls with so much love, that Harry can’t help but mirror his smile back at him. “It’s not a lot, I know, but it’s mine. And I’m working on some stuff, see, you wouldn’t believe the amount of studios around here that sell out their stuff super cheap when it’s out of fashion, even if it’s working.”

As he talks, he walks around the room gracefully, his feet finding all the open spots, and he points to the cameras and lights he’s got lined up against the walls. “I’m gonna go indie, basically. I tried mainstream, I really did, when I first got here, but it just wasn’t for me. Mostly because to get any kind of job first you had to spend like five years being someone’s errands boy and I couldn’t do that,” Zayn explains, and Harry nods, because he’s seen enough of LA to know it’s exactly like that. “Have a seat, I’ll get us some glasses and, uh. You can tell me what’s going on, if you want to.”

He fumbles around the place some more and produces a bottle of vodka and two mugs that he places on the coffee table in front of Harry as he sits on the couch.

It takes three shots before Harry finds the courage in him to start speaking.

"Taylor broke up with me.” Zayn glances at him and keeps on drinking, so Harry takes a deep breath and adds, “And she’s going away on tour all across the country tomorrow.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Harry can see Zayn’s brain working overtime, trying to think of something to say. He can even see it in his eyes, the moment in which he realizes there is just nothing to say. Nothing at all. He can’t call her a bitch, because Harry loves her and she’s not a bitch anyway, and he can’t say Harry’s better off, because, well. Harry loves her. It’s too soon for saying anything else.

“It’s alright, really,” Harry shrugs his shoulders as he finishes off his mug of vodka, “she’s been making music since she was twelve. She deserves this. And me- I’d just make it all more complicated. It’s better like this.”

“You’ve been making music since you were fourteen,” Zayn points out, and Harry shakes his head.

“It’s not the same and you know it. Her music, it’s just… Her music at thirteen was better than my music now. And she’s worked so hard, I just wish we’d realized before coming here how pointless it would be for us to come here together when she’d eventually have to leave.”

“Guess she didn’t think it would be so soon.”

"Guess so.” Harry puts his mug down, and he leans back on his seat, hugging his knees to his chest. “If I can, uh, borrow your computer, then I was planning on getting a flight back home tomorrow. There’s no point in me staying here any longer, not with her gone.”

“What, no, no way,” Zayn shakes his head vehemently, and puts his hand over Harry’s, squeezing it tightly. “I was just on my way out, and you’re coming with me. I’m not letting you go to sleep with that look on your face, and I don’t have enough vodka for you to drown your sadness in, so we’re going out. It’s open mic night, it will be fun.”

Harry wants to say no, but then something in his mind clicks and he groans loudly.

“Oh god. This is about that Irish bloke, innit?” It’s funny how that’s all it takes for Zayn to automatically get a deer in the headlights look on his face, and despite how very upset he is at the world tonight, Harry smiles a little at that. “I’m not gonna get dragged away from my misery just to watch you make heart eyes at some blond you’ve never even dared speak to.”

As he says it, he untangles his limbs and gets up, because there is nothing in this world that would lift his spirits as much as watching Zayn do exactly that.

“I don’t- I’ve never- I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I have talked to him, by the way, so shut up. Let’s just go and get you drunk so you stop being a dick, okay?” Zayn grumbles, already opening the door and rolling his eyes as Harry walks by, making a heart with his hands and blowing kisses through it.

 

The bar’s pretty crowded, and there’s some girl singing her lungs out at the mic, sounding so good that Harry stops and stares for a moment, before Zayn tugs at his sleeve to get him to follow him to the bar. They’re not halfway there when someone shouts Zayn’s name, and judging by how quickly he turns around, Harry figures he’s about to meet that guy Zayn’s been texting him about ever since he moved to LA.

“Zayn! Was hoping you’d drop by, who’s your friend and why don’t you two have pints yet? I’m Niall, by the way, are you Harry? You must be Harry.” He’s very loud, very blond, and very, very Irish, and Harry instantly likes him, even if he is slightly taken aback when he throws an arm around each of them as if they’d been friends forever, before dragging them to the bar.

Niall doesn’t stop talking from the moment he opens his mouth, and Harry is doing his best to follow him but he talks really fast in a thick accent, and to make it even harder to focus, Zayn’s face is priceless and he wishes he had some sort of spy camera he could record him with so he has evidence of how much he’s drooling while the guy goes on about some football thing. Zayn doesn’t even like football, but he’s listening as if it’s the most interesting thing in the entire world, his eyes fixed on his mouth, and Harry can’t stop grinning.

He’s very glad he let Zayn bring him here despite how very much he craved to drown in his sorrow while tucked away in a bed, because this is just so much better. His faith in love is very slowly coming back to life, watching his best friend completely entranced by some dude, and maybe if he can get another five or six litres of vodka in his blood he’ll stop thinking about his stupidly beyond repair broken heart.

Even with Niall still gesticulating wildly at his side, Zayn keeps glancing back at Harry, getting him pint after pint, and when Niall finally gets called on to go on stage, he leans back against him, sighing.

“I’m sorry,” he says, though his smile indicates otherwise.

“It’s okay, you have every right to be in love, and I’m very glad you brought me here to meet him.”

“I brought you here because of the open mic,” Zayn mumbles, and Harry rolls his eyes until it hits him and he’s opening them wide as the Moon and shaking his head frantically.

“What, no, no, no. No. Zayn. I’m not singing, that’s a terrible idea, I came to see you grinning like a fool at the love of your life and seeing how oblivious you are about how much he obviously likes you. Not to sing. I don’t sing.”

Zayn sits up, giving him a patient look that makes Harry even more nervous. Niall’s on stage, setting up his guitar, so hopefully he won’t be long and Zayn will forget all about Harry.

“Yeah, you do, and I think it would help. Plus, I already signed you up, and you wouldn’t want to embarrass me in front of Niall, would you?”

It’s dreadful, and deceiving, and Harry really hates Zayn, because he’s absolutely right and now he’s gonna be forced to do it. Excellent.

On stage, Niall starts plucking at his guitar mindlessly, until he starts playing a soft tune that Harry doesn’t recognize until he starts singing. It’s ridiculous, how there’s so many people around them, yet Harry has this overwhelming feeling like he’s third wheeling on a way too intimate date. It’s a very old Eagles’ song, he thinks it’s called Peaceful Easy Feeling, and as he sings, Niall somehow manages to stare right through the crowd and into Zayn’s eyes, and it’s all a little too intense for Harry’s recently broken heart, so halfway through the song, he excuses himself and goes to the loo to wait for it to end.

A part of him is expecting to find them making out heavily when he gets back, so he’s both disappointed and relieved when he sees them chatting casually, sitting far away from each other. Idiots.

“Hey, I was getting worried about you,” Zayn says when he sees him coming, and Harry shrugs it off.

“Wasn’t feeling too good, but I’m fine.” A voice calls out his name, and Harry winces. It’s time then. “Guess I have to go do that, don’t I. I don’t even know what to sing, especially not after that breathtaking performance.”

Niall laughs, cheeks pink with a little pride. “Thanks, mate, but Zayn here says you’re mind blowingly good and that you write your own stuff? You should do one of your own. People love songwriters here.”

Zayn nods next to him, and Harry huffs. It’s not like he’s got anything else prepared, but this a horrible idea. Horrible, insanely horrible. But Zayn’s looking at him expectantly, so he asks Niall for his guitar, and he goes on on stage.

The problem’s rather obvious. He’s been writing since he was a teenager. He’s been in love with Taylor since he was a teenager.

All of his songs are about Taylor.

It’s a complete disaster, just like he’d expected, because his voice cracks, and his eyes are all teary because the song came out sadder than ever, and no one claps and he’s actually glad that they spare him the pity cheering because it’s better. He’ll go crawl into a hole now, take his pathetic song with him and just disappear while he waits for the apocalypse or for Zayn and Niall’s wedding, whichever happens first.

He gets down from stage and sits next to Zayn, who says nothing and hands him a pint instead. With a grateful sigh, Harry downs it faster than he should, and Niall pats his shoulder.

“Too soon, huh,” is all he says, and Harry’s nodding regretfully when a hand lands on his knee, and he turns to find blue eyes piercing into his soul.

“You are fantastic.” His breath stinks of alcohol, and he’s pulled up a chair so close his knees are bumping against Harry’s. He shrinks against the couch, Niall’s grip on his shoulder tightening. “Amazing. Not that performance, obviously, but you, you have a lot of talent. I want you.”

It’s all a little too much and Harry’s had enough of a rough night already to have to deal with this, so he looks to Zayn with desperation, hoping to be rescued. He was hoping to see him and Niall ready to jump and defend him, but instead they’re both staring at the guy with what seems to be admiration, and Harry suddenly fears for his life.

“I’m sorry, mate, but that’s, uh, that’s not really my thing. Not into it. Thought I was, for a while, back in high school, but I never really figured that out and, uh, even if I was, I’m kind of into, tall, blonde, long legged… Taylors. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, honest, just not my type.”

“What.” The guy’s mouth drops open and there’s a whole minute in which no one says anything until it seems to dawn on him how what he said came off, and he instantly backs away, retreating his hand from Harry’s knee, his face falling spectacularly. “That’s not what I meant. I want to produce you. I’m a producer. But thanks for that.”

Next to him, Zayn and Niall are so obviously trying not to crack up laughing that Harry is considering pulling at their hair to get them to stop. How was he supposed to know this guy was talking about business when he looks like he hasn’t showered in a month?

“Oh. I’m sorry,” He raises his eyebrows, slightly shocked. “But I don’t wanna be produced. I’m not a musician.”

“You could be,” says the guy as he wiggles his eyebrows and Harry isn’t sure how that’s supposed to convince him of anything.

“I’m not, and I don’t intend to be. I’m sorry, but I have no intentions of getting into music, and I’m having a rough night so I’d really appreciate it if you could leave me alone.”

The guy sighs heavily and gets up, fumbling about his clothes, until he gets a card out of the back pocket of his jeans.

“Here,” he says as he hands it to Harry. “If you change your mind, give me a call. I’ll be waiting.”

He walks away, and Harry looks down at the card, /Louis Tomlinson, Replay Records/. So he really is a producer. When he looks back up, Zayn and Niall are staring at him insistently.

“So?”

“I’m not a musician.”

What’s funny is that it’s not the circumstances that make Zayn say nothing else on the subject, because he’s never been one to push. It’s Harry who would have reacted differently, if this had happened to him twenty four hours ago. Forty eight. A year. Just not now. He’s no longer a musician, he’s giving up on that.

So no one says anything else, and after yet another pint, Harry claims to need some air and heads outside, mostly because he’s really hoping his absence will make one of the dumbasses sitting next to him finally make a move instead of just staring fondly at each other. It feels like the great time to light up a cig, but Harry’s never smoked in his life and he should probably stop getting so caught up in the atmosphere of the city. Especially since he’s leaving tomorrow. He looks around, remembering he has absolutely no means of entering Zayn’s house thus he’s stuck here until he comes out, and then he spots him.

“Louis Tomlinson, Replay Records.” He turns so fast when Harry says his name that he worries he might have hurt himself.

“Curly with the low voice,” he smiles, and he steps away from the wall he’d been leaning on, offering Harry a drag from the cig he’s smoking.

“No, I don’t smoke, thanks.” Harry gives him a long look, still not fully convinced. Behind him, he can hear Niall’s voice getting louder, so he figures they’re on their way out as well so he might actually get to go home finally.

“I was serious, you know.”

“It’s hard to take you seriously when you smell like you drank the entire Guiness factory.”

Louis laughs at that, like he’s painfully aware of that but also resigned.

“How’s this, call me tomorrow morning. I’ll make you the offer again, sober, and you’ll see how serious I am. You have potential, don’t throw it away for some blonde chick who upped and left you. Music is so much more important than girls.”

He says it like he means it, and Harry wishes he could believe there is anything more important than Taylor.

“I’ll think about it,” is all he replies, and then the door’s opening and Zayn’s waving goodbye to Niall and putting an arm around Harry.

“Home, then?” he asks, and Harry nods, giving one last look at Louis.

“I’ll be waiting for you to ring me,” he calls after them once they’re already walking away, and Harry shakes his head as the only answer to Zayn’s inquisitive look.

So maybe he’ll leave tomorrow night instead of tomorrow morning. And maybe he’ll take the night to think about what Louis said. Not because he thinks he might be right about music, but because going back home defeated doesn’t really sound like a tempting option, so he might as well try and do something that might make his mom proud before he goes back to hide in her arms.

The morning after, he finds himself sitting at Zayn’s table fumbling with his phone, trying to make up his mind. It seemed pretty clear that he should take up this opportunity the night before, but with the sun up and Zayn’s eyes trained on his face so insistently, he’s not so sure anymore. He drinks his cup of coffee slowly, staring at his phone, until Zayn huffs out a curse and snatches it off his hands.

“What are you-” Harry starts saying, but then he sees Zayn has the card in his hand and he’s dialing a number and okay. That’s why he has friends around, to make the choices he can’t. It rings two, three times, and then Zayn hands it to him, Louis’s voice coming through loud and clear.

“What?” For a greeting, it’s a little harsh, and if Harry wasn’t currently freaking out so bad, he’d tell him so.

“It’s, uh. The guy from last night?” There’s a gasp on the other side of the line, and Harry hurries with the rest of the sentence. “Curly guy who sang at the open mic and you said-”

“Oh, oh, yes, that guy. Okay. I mean, I knew it was you, there were no other guys last night. I was pretty sure of that.” Harry’s starting to regret having ever called, and then Louis seems to finally get it together. “So you made up your mind about me producing you.”

“Yeah, I thought about it, and, uh. I’d be an idiot if I said no.”

“Well, I can’t produce you.”

There’s a very long silence in which Harry is half expecting Louis to burst into laughing and tell him he’s kidding, but he doesn’t say anything and Harry isn’t sure what to respond to that.

“You offered.”

“I was drunk.”

“I noticed, but then you said- I should’ve known. Nevermind.” Harry rubs his face with his hand, ignoring Zayn’s look of concern. He should’ve just left, this city is no good for him, it never has been.

“Wait, wait. There’s a thing we could do. If you really are interested in getting your music out there, I can help, because I actually /am/ really interested in it.” Louis barely pauses to take a breath before he continues speaking, as if he knows giving Harry another second will only result in him kindly declining his help. “I’m not in a position to make the decision of producing an artist just like that, not right now, but you can come with me and we’ll show your demo to someone who does have the power to do that.”

“I- I don’t have a demo,” Harry stutters out. Louis’s talking way too fast for him to gather his thoughts and figure out whether he wants to do this or not. If it’s some sort of business strategy, it must do wonders for him.

“Fuck it then, just bring your guitar and play your song and-”

“I don’t have a guitar,” Harry supplies unhelpfully, and Louis huffs loudly on the other side of the line.

“Who doesn’t own a guitar, for fuck’s sake? Fine, I’ll bring mine, and then you can play your song and he’ll sign you. Text me your address. I’m on my way.”

Harry’s unsure how Louis can be on his way when he doesn’t know his address yet, but he’s hung up already so there’s not much he can do but text him the address and try to explain to Zayn what just happened. He’s only just starting to wrap his head around it when he hears a loud honk, and Zayn looks at him shrugging his shoulders.

“Go do your thing then, that guy’s serious shit, Niall told me all about him. Try to come back in one piece, because if that guy drives as fast as he speaks you’re gonna be in serious danger.” Zayn smiles mockingly, and Harry flips him off before closing the door behind him, though a part of him is seriously concerned.

It turns out, Louis isn’t that much of a lousy driver, even though he doesn’t keep his eyes on the road for more than five seconds. His car smells like take out and beer, which isn’t really surprising since it’s full of empty bags of take out and Harry’s positive there’s beer spilled on the backseat. It doesn’t exactly strike him as the car of a well known producer. It’s actually a lot more like the car of an alcoholic who lives in it, but he doesn’t want to risk his chances by bringing that up, so he does his best to ignore the smell, and somehow succeeds in not getting any bags stuck to his shoes when he gets out of the car.

 

Replay Records is a real place that exists, Harry’s pleased to see, and it looks fantastic. Louis walks in waving vaguely at the security guy at the door, and Harry follows him with a quick pace, grinning at everyone they cross paths with. There seems to be quite a bunch of people working there, and they all stare at them a bit weirdly, but Harry figures it’s probably because Louis still stinks of alcohol.

Soon enough, he’s opening up a door with a sign that reads “Tomlinson”, and they walk into an office where a very handsome guy is reading something with his brows all scrunched up. He looks up when he hears the door, and his face scrunches up even more at the sight of Louis. Harry’s heart drops to the floor instantly.

“Relax, Payno, I’ll only be here for half an hour, tops. Despite what you may think, I’m not entirely irresponsible.” Louis’s smile doesn’t falter, and he walks around the desk and sits on it, somehow managing to avoid the stacks of papers. “I brought a candidate.”

“That’s not your job anymore, Louis.” The so-called Payno speaks slowly, rubbing his temple as if his mere presence is enough to give him a headache.

“He’s really good, Liam. You have to give him a shot. I’m not asking for my job back or anything, I just thought you should give him a shot. For him. Not for me.”

Liam sighs, and for the first time, he looks at Harry. He looks at him for a very long moment, studying him almost, until Harry starts to feel itchy under his intense examination and coughs.

“Hi. I’m Harry.”

It seems to snap Liam out of whatever trance he was in, for he gets up instantly and walks around the desk. “Sorry, sorry about that. Forgot my manners for a moment. I’m Liam Payne, it’s very nice to meet you, Harry.”

They shake hands, and Louis winks at Harry from over Liam’s shoulder, as if this is some sort of sign that things are going well.

“I guess I could give your demo a listen, even though I’m pretty packed now that I have to run this place all on my own.”

“And whose fault was that, Liam?” Louis asks mockingly, and Liam shakes his head without even turning to look at him.

“It was your fault, Louis.” It sounds like he’s trying to be stern, but then he does turn his head and their eyes meet and they go all soft, and Harry’s never felt this uncomfortable in his life.

“Yes, well.” Louis jumps down from the desk, coming to stand behind Harry. “Harry doesn’t have a demo, but I have a guitar.”

It's written all over Liam’s face how very badly he wants to groan and possibly slap Louis, but much to Harry’s relief, he only sighs a little and shrugs his shoulders.

“Sure, okay. Let’s do that instead. But I only have half an hour- and so do you, Louis,” he adds, pointing his finger menacingly at him.

“Yes, yes, come on, let’s do this. Your mind’s gonna be blown.” Louis rolls his eyes, leading the way out of the office.

The recording room they go into looks so professional that the minute Harry steps into it, he knows he's out of his depths here. Unlike Louis, Liam seems to be taking this all very seriously, and his music isn't serious enough for this. He's proud of his songs, and he thinks they're pretty good, but they aren’t gonna be huge hits, and he figures that's what producers look for in music, or else they wouldn’t make any money off it. Still, with both of them staring at him, he grabs Louis’s guitar and plays them his song. Sings his heart out. It isn’t what Liam’s looking for, he knows it, but if this is his one chance to actually make something of his music, then at least he wants to be able to say he gave it his all.

  


“Well, you know what, fuck him.”

Louis doesn’t seem mad. At first, when Liam put on that very sad expression on his face that told Harry all he needed to hear, he’d been terrified of what driving back to Zayn’s in the car with Louis would be like. He expected him to be raging, but instead, he seems pretty calm. Also, he’s not driving to Zayn’s, but Harry doesn’t dare ask.

“We don’t need him. You do have other songs, right?”

“A bunch,” Harry says, shrugging his shoulders.

“There you go. No need for a Liam. Plus he’s being an idiot because he’s mad, but if we show him how you’d sound with proper instruments and all- we’ll manage. I have a plan. Lots of plans.”

“Listen, Louis…” Harry starts saying, because he’s done enough. It isn’t like this is some lifelong dream that’s vanishing before his eyes, he’d never even considered making money out of his music until the night before, so really, he’s okay with letting it go. Plus, he’s still sad and wants to go home, where Taylor’s face will hopefully not be waiting at every turn, in some giant billboard promoting her tour.

“No, you listen,” Louis interrupts him harshly, letting go of the wheel for a moment, and now he does look angry and Harry fears for his life, but the look of panic in his eyes seems to make him realize this, because he grabs the wheel again and takes a deep breath. “I need you, Harry. I have- I have a point to prove. And you have so much talent, you could go very far, if you just hear me out. But I can’t do this right now, so if you could just do me one huge favor and bear with me for a moment, while I do this one thing I need to do, I can explain it all to you. Please.”

Never in his entire life has Harry been able to deny someone a favor, especially when it’s something he’s perfectly able to do. He’ll hear him out. Then he’ll probably still leave anyway, but he can give that to him, so he nods, and Louis grins brightly.

“Excellent. You’re gonna love my plan. It’s brilliant, like all of my plans.”

Something tells Harry that’s not the case at all, but since Louis’s still at the wheel, he keeps quiet about it. Finally, he pulls the car over, and Harry looks around, a bit puzzled. This is definitely not Zayn’s. It’s a kindergarten.

“I’ll be right back,” Louis says as he unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out of the car. Harry watches him go, and moments later, he comes out of the place with a tiny little girl talking animatedly in his arms. After carefully placing her in the backseat, he gets back in the car, starting it. “So, uh. I was thinking of going back to my place so we can talk properly, and then I’ll take you back to your friend’s, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, glancing back at the little girl, who’s staring right back at him with a lot of interest. “Hello, I’m Harry.”

“I’m Darcy,” she grins and waves, leaning forward until she catches Louis’s glare in the rearview mirror and sits back against the seat with a huff. “It is very nice to meet you, Harry, are you daddy’s friend?”

“I, uh, yes, I am daddy’s friend,” Harry says, turning around in his seat to face her. “How old are you, Darcy?”

“I’m almost ten,” she replies proudly, sticking up her chest, and Harry can see Louis biting his lip to stop himself from bursting into laughter. “But for now I’m three.”

“Oh, oh, I see,” Harry nods seriously, “I’m almost ten too, except I’m a bit older.”

“You don’t look older,” Darcy smiles at him, and Harry can’t believe this is Louis’s kid. He can’t have possibly raised such a good mannered child, not when he’s so far from polite.

They get to Louis’s house and Darcy grabs Harry’s hand as soon as they’re out of the car, tugging until he catches the hint and kneels down so she can press her hand to his ear and whisper.

“Daddy’s just moved so it’s a little bit messy but you’re not allowed to say anything about it, Harry, because it would be impolite.” Harry pulls away and she stares at him sternly until he nods. Then she leads the way into Louis’s house, and Harry sees exactly why her mother or whoever must have warned her to keep quiet. The place is an absolute mess, and it looks like Louis isn’t really planning on staying, since everything’s still neatly packed up in boxes, only a few of them open. It’s a rather big place, more like a studio than an apartment, with a big bed on one side, and an alarmingly empty kitchen on the other.

“Darcy, why don’t you go play while daddy makes us all some lunch and talks to his friend?” Louis says, and Darcy doesn’t hesitate in dropping her backpack and making a beeline for the bed, where there’s a big box with her name written on the side, and plush toys piled up on it. After watching her get them out and carefully place them side by side on the bed, Harry turns to Louis, who’s staring consideringly at his empty fridge with a hand on his hip.

“Take out sounds good,” he says, and Louis looks back slightly startled.

“Yeah, I- I haven’t settled in yet, sorry about that.”

“Moved in recently?”

Louis makes a noncommital sound as he dials a number on his phone, not looking back at Harry until he’s done ordering food.

“Uh, couple months ago, actually. I just- It’s complicated.” He scratches the back of his head, barely glancing at Harry before turning around and starting to dig through the cabinets above the countertop. There’s a couple of plates and glasses, thankfully, and he starts taking them out, mostly to keep busy and not have to look back at Harry.

“You’re not making lunch,” Darcy points out from the nest she built for herself with all her plush toys, frowning at Louis. He rolls his eyes at her, muttering something under his breath, but when he does set his eyes on her, he looks the absolute opposite of annoyed.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t get pizza again, and I promise we can go grocery shopping after Harry leaves.” Darcy grins at this, clapping a little before going back to her toys, and Louis stares at her a little while longer before sitting down across from Harry and handing him a glass of water.

“She doesn’t like pizza?” Harry asks, amused.

“No, she does, she just thinks I need to eat healthier. Heard it at home, I suppose, Liam must be freaking out now that he’s not around to check on me,” Louis says casually, but he can’t ignore Harry’s raised eyebrow. “Thought you might catch the name on the door and figure it out yourself.”

Harry stares at him, with no clue of what he’s talking about.

“The name? On what door?” he asks, and then there’s an image in his head of Liam’s office, and the name and- “Oh. I thought maybe that was your office.”

“Nope. Mine’s got the same sign, but it’s two doors down from his.”

The doorbell rings, and Louis gets up, checking his pockets until he finds his wallet as he makes his way to the door.

“So Liam’s your....” Harry makes a vague gesture with his hands, and Louis finishes off the sentence right before he opens the door to the delivery guy.

“Husband, yes.”

 

It isn’t after they’re done eating and Darcy’s gone to take a nap that Louis finally starts talking about music, though by then Harry’s far more interested in finding out more about him and Liam, and possibly sticking around to talk to Darcy some more.

“You ever seen the Takeaway Show?,” he asks, and Harry shakes his head, so Louis turns the computer he’d been typing on so he can see, and presses play on a Youtube video. It’s a band he’s never heard before, playing under a bridge. It sounds incredible. It doesn’t seem to have a lot of production, and you can hear the water running, but it only adds to the magic of the songs. “We don’t need a studio.” Louis whispers, and Harry was going to say no. He really was. He wanted to go home. But then Louis puts another video on, and Harry realizes he freaked out mostly seeing that fancy building with people in suits, because he just couldn’t imagine his music going anywhere if he had to make decisions surrounded by people like that. But this, he can see himself doing this.

“We’d still need equipment,” he says, mostly to say something, because it looks too perfect for him, for the kind of art he’s always wanted to make.

“I have tons of equipment. And if we can just get started with it, get something done, record just one song, I’m sure we could make Liam see how brilliant it would be.”

Harry pauses the video, looking at Louis.

“I really like this. But I don’t want to get in between whatever it is that’s going on between you and your, uh. Husband.”

“It’s not like that,” Louis says, and he sighs, running his fingers through his hair absentmindedly. “Okay, maybe it’s a little like that. You have to know I want to help you because you’re really talented and I think you could do great things if pushed in the right direction. But yes, maybe I also want to help you because I think it can help me fix things. Liam and I- it wasn’t working, but it didn’t have to do with us. He thinks it did, but I know it wasn’t us, it was the goddamn company. It got too big for us, we started it because we wanted to helped people who wanted to make their own music but didn’t fit into the industry’s standards. And then it got out of hand, and some of our artists got too big, and there was so much work, and it was all so serious and mainstream and I couldn’t take it. So, uh. I fucked up a little, a few times, and Liam got mad at me, and I got mad at him because it’s like he doesn’t remember what it was that we wanted to do. We wanted to discover new talents, people who weren’t just, you know, teenagers with bubblegum songs made in a hit machine. People with visions, who wouldn’t want us to tell them how to dress or what sort of songs to sing. But we had to pay for everything, and then Darcy came along, and indie music wasn’t putting enough food in our plates for three people, so Liam got too serious, and I got too stressed and it all blew up.”

Louis pauses to take a breath, and Harry has to fight back the impulse to walk around the table and hug him, because he looks so distraught and very, very sad.

“If I can show Liam that I can still take work seriously, and that there are still tons of musicians out there who need us- maybe he’ll remember what we set out to do. And if we do it like this, if we show him we can do it without investing tons of money so that there’s an actual profit even if you don’t end up touring worldwide or whatever, then maybe he can see we can do this without starving our daughter.”

It’s too much for Harry to take in. There’s a baby involved, and the possibility to make music in the most honest way he could have ever imagined, and the chance to help Louis win back the love of his life -he’s assuming that’s the case, because Louis may not have put it like that but he can see it in his eyes. He couldn’t say no if he tried.

“Won’t we need, uh, like, a band or something?” He asks, and Louis’s eyes sparkle up, like he knows this is his way of subtly saying yes.

“Yeah. But I know where we can find musicians, don’t worry.”

 

  
Now that Harry’s all properly pumped about this, realizing Louis’s driving him to Zayn’s is a bit of a disappointment. When he said he’d find him a band, he’d sort of expected him to go do it right this very minute, but with Darcy still on the backseat, he figures he should have known they weren’t gonna start recording right away.

Except when they finally get there, both Louis and Darcy get out of the car and follow him to the door.

"You’re coming?” Harry asks, taken aback.

“I just need to ask your friend a question, don’t worry, we’ll be out of your hair in a second.”

“We’d get lost in his hair,” Darcy mumbles, giggling, and Harry can’t help but glare. She’s so evidently Louis’s child too.

Zayn buzzes them in after Harry rings the doorbell, and he’s left the door open upstairs, so they walk in, finding him sitting on the floor, surrounded by sketchbooks.

“Uh, hi. You’ve sort of met Louis, and this is, uh. Darcy.” Harry gestures towards them, and Louis grins while Darcy carefully walks up to Zayn’s spot, trying not to step on anything, little hand stretched out in front of her. Zayn shakes it, standing up and staring at Harry with confusion.

“We just wanted to know if you by any chance knew where your Irish friends lives.” Louis asks. and now everyone’s staring at him inquiringly.

“Not really, no, but, uh. I could ask him,” Zayn says as he looks around for his phone, and Harry forgets himself for a moment, making a strangled noise of excitement.

“You have his /number/, and you didn’t tell me?” He asks in a high pitched voice he’s not proud of, and Zayn glares at him.

“He gave it to me when I said I didn’t know too many people in town. It’s for /emergencies/.”

“Sure, yes. Emergencies. I can imagine.” Harry has to bite his tongue not to say what kind of emergencies he thinks Niall’s hoping Zayn will call him for because there’s a little girl in the room, so he limits himself to wiggle his eyebrows.

“Shut up,” Zayn bites back, pressing the phone to his ear, waiting for Niall to pick up. “Can I know what it is that you want with Niall?”

“Why, are you concerned about your boyfriend?” Harry can’t help saying, and for a moment he worries Louis might kick him, but he looks just as amused as him, especially when Niall finally picks up and they get to see Zayn’s face twist with fondness when he hears his voice.

“That is so disgusting,” Louis semi whispers, and Darcy nods vehemently. Harry wishes he could agree, but his heart is currently swelling up in his chest as he looks at his friend stuttering through his sentences. If he’s gonna be sticking around to help Louis, maybe he can try and help Zayn get his head out of his ass too, and then maybe mending everyone else’s heartbreak will do something for his.

  


Turns out, Niall’s an amazing guitarist. Louis had spotted him busking a while back, and he’d saved that information at the back of his head, for future reference. Niall turns a very bright shade of red when Louis casually says he knows a great musician when he hears one and he never forgets about those, and Harry can tell he’d agree to even if Louis was asking him to help bury a body after that.

“I’m guessing you have an ukelele or something dumb like that that you wanna play, so if we just get some percussion, we’d be good to go.”

“I know a guy, and I could get us a bass too,” Niall points out, and Louis puts his hand on his shoulder, squeezing it.

“Get me all of the guys you’ve got then, let’s make one great song and see if that’s enough.”

Louis leaves shortly after exchanging numbers with Niall and making arrangements for what kind of instruments to get, and Harry stays behind, waving goodbye at Darcy from Niall’s window as they get back on the car.

“That guy’s a legend,” Niall says, offering him a beer and sitting down on his bed, patting the spot next to him so Harry will join him.

“I hadn’t ever heard from him,” Harry admits, and Niall makes a face at him.

“Well, guess you haven’t been in LA that long to become familiar with producers and stuff. Him and Payne, they did some amazing stuff when they were just starting out. Gave shots to people no one would have taken a chance on, and ended up producing some great records. The thing is some of their artists made it really big and left them, and I heard things got kind of tricky money wise so they had to start cutting back, and everything sort of went downhill from there.”

“Yes, that’s kind of what Louis told me,” Harry nods along, and then takes a sip of his beer.

“Are you excited about it? You didn’t seem so excited before, but you look like you’re starting to like the idea.”

“I’m starting to love the idea,” he admits, “mostly because I’d like to get my music out there, but I don’t want to, like, tour or whatever. That’s too much work, and I’m not that serious about it.”

“I can see that,” Niall laughs, and Harry shoves him over playfully. It’s so easy to be comfortable around Niall, even though he’s only known him for like two seconds, that he can see why Zayn likes him so much. As if he was reading his mind, Niall immediately brings him up. “So, uh, what’s the deal with Zayn?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been running into him at open mic nights for months now, and it took me ages to even get him to tell me his name, so I’m guessing he’s kinda shy, and I think I once heard him say he… paints?”

“Draws, and he’s kind of incredible at it,” Harry corrects him, doing his best to not be too obvious about how hard his heart is beating. So he wasn’t wrong about Niall’s interest. Perfect. “But hey, if you wanna know more about his awesome, delightful self, I’ll make sure to tell him to come see us rehearse someday.”

Niall’s face goes once again very bright pink, and he looks suddenly bashful.

"Would you do that? I mean, if he wants to, like I don’t wanna bother him or anything but he’s just, you know. I don’t know. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” says Harry, finding enough mercy in him not to laugh and to change the topic instead, putting Niall out of his misery. “Okay, so I was thinking of showing you some songs so you can help me choose one.”

“Yeah, sure, let’s do that,” Niall says, relief washing over his face at seeing the subject dropped, and he stands up to go grab the guitar that’s lying against the fridge for some reason.

  


It takes them two weeks and three days to perfect it. They work on the lyrics, which is scary for Harry but soon he sees Louis is very respectful of his work: he doesn’t do anything without asking him first, and whenever he asks about something he thinks would sound better differently, it’s a minor change. He never touches the bits and pieces that make the song what it is. It makes Harry think of Taylor, and the first weeks they spent in LA together, when she was starting to record her album, and all the songs that were lost in editing, all the things she’d wanted to say through her music that had gotten lost in translation. He feels this is better, he’s safe with Louis.

The band Niall gets them is pretty decent, and Niall in particular is brilliant, though Harry figures he’s trying extra hard to impress Zayn, as if he wasn’t already constantly in awe of him. To give him an excuse to stick around, Harry asks him to make them a design for the cover. It turns out even better than he’d expected, since Zayn decides he should draw the band, and when Harry comes home that night -because he just stayed at Zayn’s ever since that first night, and though he’s kind of expecting him to kick him out at some point, he’s not emotionally ready to be left alone just yet, so he’s not gonna say anything until he does,- he finds Zayn surrounded by sketches of Niall’s face.

“Okay,” he grins, and Zayn gives him the sheepiest of smiles.

“I got the rest of you right on the first try, but his face is just- too expressive. It’s hard to catch.”

“Sure, yes, that’s the reason for this. Perfectly logical. Drummer needs to be properly drawn, you gotta make sure his true feelings are conveyed in the cover for my one song demo that no one’s gonna see so you’re up at two am drawing his face.”

“Shut up,” Zayn mumbles, snatching off his hands one of his sketches. “What were you doing on the streets at two am though?”

“Nothing,” Harry replies quickly, entering the bathroom and busying himself with brushing his teeth to buy himself some time, but when he comes out, Zayn’s still up and waiting for his answer. “I was out with Louis.”

“With Louis?” Zayn raises an eyebrow, putting down his sketchbook, which is how Harry knows he’s truly worried.

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” Harry rolls his eyes, sitting on the bed and starting to undress. “We were talking about the song.”

“At two in the morning.” Zayn is a horrible person and if it wasn’t because it’s truly not at all like what he’s imagining, Harry would dislike him.

“We started talking about the song, and then, uh. I asked him about Liam. So we talked about that as well. And then, uh, he asked me about the song, so I had to tell him about Taylor.”

The relief in Zayn’s face is almost ridiculous, and Harry feels a little bit offended that he even considered he would be doing whatever it is he thought he was doing.

“Did you buy ice cream and cry about your exes after singing sad songs? That’s what you did with your Friday night?”

“That’s rich, coming from the lame guy who’s all alone in his apartment drawing someone’s face over and over again,” Harry bites back, and then instantly feels bad about it because he didn’t want to be mean but he also doesn’t enjoy being teased like that. “I’m sorry. Your drawings are really cool and you’re not lame.”

“That’s okay, Harry,” Zayn smiles, reaching over to pat his head. It should feel condescending, but it actually feels rather comforting. “Go to bed, buddy. I heard Louis say you were gonna show the song to Liam tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“So big day ahead. Get some sleep. Promise I’ll wake you up if you sleep through your alarm.” Zayn gets up from his chair and presses a kiss to the top of Harry’s head before going to the bathroom, and Harry slips into the bed, tucking himself in like a little child.

 

 

LA isn’t turning out to be as bad as he’d thought a couple weeks ago. He drifts off to sleep easily, thinking of all the great things that will come with morning light, and he’s dreaming happily about his songs and stuff when his phone starts buzzing. Slowly, doing his best not to wake Zayn up -particularly hard since they’re sleeping in the same bed and Harry is stuck between him and the wall-, he gets up and picks it up.

There’s a moment in which he thinks maybe he’s still dreaming, because it would make sense for Taylor to show up in a dream that had been revolving around his songs. But then he presses it to his ear and her voice comes through the speaker and it crashes down on him how very real it is.

“I’m sorry,” she starts saying, and he can tell she’s crying but his brain can’t compute any of what’s happening just yet. “I know I have no right to be calling you, but I didn’t know who else to talk to, I didn’t want to talk to anyone else, and I hope you weren’t sleeping because I know it’s early there but I just-”

“Hey, hey, Taylor. It’s alright,” Harry’s voice comes out raspy and shaky, uncontrollably so, because he hasn’t heard her voice in a month and now she’s crying and his heart is beating hard against his chest trying to escape so it can go to her. “It’s okay, tell me what’s going on, talk to me.”

She takes a deep breath on the other side of the line, clearly trying to pull herself together.

“They won’t let me use my songs.” She manages to get the entire sentence out in a breath without her tone quivering but then at the end she breaks down and she’s sobbing again. “We’ve been doing those covers they liked on stage, but when we started recording they said because it’s my first album they don’t think it would be wise to use my songs, and they want to hire /real/ writers.”

“You’re a real writer,” Harry mumbles soothingly. He’d never even thought this could happen, not when Taylor’s songs are brilliant, but mostly he can’t believe she’s crying and he’s not there to hold her. “I’m sorry, they are idiots, they don’t know what they’re missing out on. None of their writers could give them stuff that’s remotely as good as yours.”

“I don’t want to do it like this.” She takes another deep breath, but she sounds better already. He can picture her so precisely, curled up on her tour bus, biting at her thumb like she always does when she’s upset. Her hair up, in a messy bun that probably looks better than any of the sophisticated hairstyles they’ve tried giving her since this nonsense of a tour started. She shouldn’t have even been an opening act ever for anyone, she’s too good for that, but it seemed like such a good shot that it would have been ridiculous to let it go to waste. But ridiculous sometimes works best for them, Harry’s starting to learn.

“Then don’t do it.” He says, still standing up in the middle of the room, grateful that Zayn’s such a sound sleeper and hasn’t even moved in all this time.

“I can do that, right? I could just- up and leave them. I haven’t given them any of the rights to my songs anyway, and I haven’t even signed for the album because we’ve been arguing over the songs since we left LA.” She’s talking to herself, but she’s always needed him to be listening when she does. Or maybe he always liked listening to her ramble on, fascinated by the way her mind works and leads her to logical conclusions that would not seem logical unless you knew exactly the track of thoughts that led there. “I’m sorry. It was selfish of me to call like this.” She suddenly sounds a lot quieter, and Harry’s heart shrinks in pain.

“That’s okay. I don’t mind. We’re still friends, you know, we’ll always be.”

“Thank you, Harry.” The silence that follows makes it painfully obvious that neither of them think that’s true, that they’ll never be able to be friends. “How’s everything with you, how’s your mum?”

Harry hesitates for a moment, suddenly realizing she doesn’t know he never left LA. He could tell her about Louis, and the demo, and he could tell her about the songs.

“It’s fine, everything’s fine, just as I left it.” Zayn rolls over in bed and even as profoundly asleep as he is, he seems to notice Harry’s absence, and he’s starting to stir awake. “I, uh, I have to go though. But if you need me, you can always call me. I’m always here for you, despite- despite everything.”

He can almost see Taylor nodding to the phone, see her smiling that sad little smile she gave him that last day.

“Thank you, Harry.”

They don’t say it, but they don’t say anything else either, because they’ve never known another way to end conversations than to say I love you, and the words unsaid are a heavy weight on Harry’s tongue that he still feels even after getting back into bed and starting to fall back asleep. He does love her still, and it’s starting to feel like he always will.

  


Having woken up at four am makes it really hard for Harry to pay any attention to his alarm when it goes off, and when he’s woken up by the doorbell ringing loudly, he wants to hit himself for having trusted Zayn out of all people to wake him up. It’s almost nine, and they have to be there at, well, nine, and when he finally manages to get himself out of bed and open the door, he finds Niall standing there.

“Louis came to pick me up and he said you weren’t answering your phone so we came to fetch you. He’s downstairs in the… car. With, uh. Darcy.”

Harry is still half asleep and can’t quite figure out why Niall suddenly slowed down like that until he sees him gazing inside the apartment and realizes what it looks like, with him standing there in his boxers, and Zayn sleeping next to the empty space he was obviously in two seconds before.

“Sorry. Didn’t realize I was intruding or anything, I’ll just go,” Niall starts saying hurriedly, and Harry manages to wake himself up enough to grab his arm.

“No, wait, you’re not intruding. Nothing’s happening. Give me a second.” He doesn’t let go until he’s sure Niall won’t run away, and then he walks into the apartment, looking around for clothes, making sure to be loud enough so that Zayn will wake up.

Surely enough, Zayn starts to open his eyes when Harry’s banging around, and the look on his face when he sees Niall is so stupidly endearing that Harry would stop and stare fondly at his friends if he wasn’t in such a hurry.

“Hey,” he says from the bed, with one eye open and a lazy smile that Niall seems to be melting at. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Yeah, I came to pick Harry up so we can go show the demo to the label.”

“Oh, right. You came for Harry. Forgot about that.”

Harry could just punch both of them for being such idiots, honestly, because they just stare at each other for the longest moment, smiling.

“I’m sure Niall would love to come for you at some other time, but right now we have to get going,” Harry says rolling his eyes as he pushes past Niall, trying to look bothered though he’s probably more excited than they are about how close they are to quitting the oblivious act.

“Nice to see you, thanks for taking him away so I can sleep,” Zayn waves, still sitting on his bed, and Niall waves back before closing the door behind him.

“Can I ask you a thing?” Niall starts saying, and Harry puts his arms around his shoulder, bringing him closer because he can’t keep up with this whole pretending he hasn’t noticed. He sucks at playing it cool.

“I’m not sleeping with Zayn. Technically I am, but not like that, and I think Zayn would be far more interested in having you sleep with him instead of me, so you should do something about that.”

“You think?” Niall asks excitedly.

“Yes, but make sure I’m not in the bed before doing anything.” Harry chuckles, before leaning in and pressing a sloppy wet kiss on his cheek, and they’re close enough to the car that Darcy sees and starts making loud gagging noises.

“I’m gonna tell Liam you did that,” Niall threatens.

Darcy sticks her tongue out at him before cuddling up to Harry’s side as soon as he sits next to her, knowing he’ll take her side, which he obviously does, putting his arms around her and sticking his tongue out at Niall too.

“You’re so weak when it comes to women, Styles,” Niall laughs, and Harry would act offended if his heart didn’t suddenly ache in his chest at the memory of Taylor’s voice on the phone hours ago.

“More than you’d know,” he manages to say casually, and then he sinks on his seat, Darcy still pressed up against him, doing his best to stop feeling his phone burning in his pocket asking for him to call her.

 

 

A part of Harry had been nervous that Liam would be biased when listening to the song because Louis was involved, and because it was such a blatant attempt on his behalf to get his job back. He’d been entirely right.

Liam listens to the song with a very serious expression on his face, in an empty room with the door open, while they all sit outside in the hallway and stare at him, except for Louis, who’s in there with him obviously. When it ends, he looks up at him, eyes fixated on Louis’s, and Harry starts shaking. He’s very happy he got to do this with Louis, but if this gets ruined because of his complicated relationship with Liam, it’s gonna suck.

“And you recorded this on the street?” He asks, his face unreadable.

“Yup,” Louis nods, and Harry’s never witnessed such an intense exchange of stares. “It was fun, and I think it sounds pretty original.”

“It does,” Liam nods. It’s painful to watch them just looking at each other, not saying much, while they’re all there waiting. “It’s brilliant, Lou. It really is, and- god. That’s what you were trying to tell me, isn’t it. Indie music that sounds indie.”

It makes absolutely no sense to anyone but them, whatever it is they’re talking about, but Louis nods, and there’s a grin breaking on his face that’s brighter than anything Harry’s seen before on him. Liam rubs his face with his hands, and takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I mean, you fucked up, because we still had to eat and we couldn’t just throw it all away and pretend we’d be okay if we kept going like we were, but I think I fucked up too.”

“You sold out,” Louis states firmly, and there’s a collective gasp, but Liam laughs.

“I did. I sold out. I’m sorry, babe,” he says, and someone tugs on Harry’s sleeve.

“Now they’re gonna kiss, better not to look,” Darcy whispers, already covering her eyes.

They don’t actually kiss, or at least not with everyone watching, but they do keep getting closer until it’s too uncomfortable to watch, and everyone in the hallway decides to leave them alone for a moment because it looks like they might actually start making out any second now.

Harry is the last to leave, and before he does, he glances back at the room one last time, and can’t help but burst into laughing, because after very slowly pulling their chairs together while staring at each other’s lips, now they’ve got their heads together, one earplug each, discussing whether they should keep on recording outside and make an atmosphere out of it or not.

 

It takes them another half hour before they come out and Liam is so enthusiastic about everything that Harry’s one hundred percent sure they’ve kissed, if not more, so he keeps winking at Louis in the most obvious of ways. After the meeting ends, Louis offers him a ride, and as soon as he gets in the car, he turns towards him and raises his eyebrows.

“What was all that winking about, Styles?”

“So you made up with Leeyum?” Harry seems to be physically unable to stop winking, and Louis scoffs.

“Harry, just because we’re back to speaking to each other and I may be getting my job back doesn’t mean we’re not still separated.” Harry’s heart sinks in his chest, and he wonders if maybe he’s a little bit too invested in other people’s love life. “We broke up two years ago. I lost my job a week ago. Clearly we can work side by side without making out, sorry if you got your hopes up. Also, just so you know, it is a little weird that you’re rooting for us like that. We’re not your parents, Harry, you’re not the child of divorce here.”

The image of little Darcy grabbing Liam’s hand as they walked away a few minutes ago shooting sad little glances back at Louis makes Harry fall silent. He’s suddenly grateful he didn’t say anything to her, didn’t comment on how he believed they’d be happily kissing and on their way to being a happy couple again, because he may feel let down, but he can’t even imagine how heavy the heart of that tiny four year old must feel in her chest after watching them wave their goodbyes and walk away without looking back.

“You’ve been broken up for two years and you never got a divorce?” It comes out of his mouth before he even knows what he’s saying, but Louis doesn’t shoot him any murderous looks, he just sighs.

“It was a lot of paperwork.”

“But what if one of you had wanted to, you know. Be with someone else without being married.”

Now Louis does turn to him, and he’s got the most incredulous look on his face.

“I’ve got a child. I’m not gonna go around having dates with people.”

Obviously he doesn’t have a clue of how little sense he’s making, because he says as if it was the most logical thing in the world. For once in his life, Harry chooses to stay silent and not intervene. They’re the world’s biggest idiots and their being so dumb is making a little girl go through a lot of heartbreak, but Harry thinks him telling them so won’t change anything. All he can do is hope working side by side again might help them figure it out for themselves.

  
  


A month goes by where all any of them do is work hard, and keep Darcy entertained. Even Zayn, who wasn’t gonna get involved much with the album at first, gets an offer from Liam to design the rest of the booklet, so he ends up spending as much time as the rest of them with his head on Harry’s music. It’s a little weird, to have such a big group of people thinking so hard about his songs all the time, especially when they’re all so intimate, but it’s mostly a good kind of weird. They’re still recording on the streets, and on Louis’s request, they keep things as simple as possible, only changing some of their equipment for better things Liam can provide them with. It’s fun, and Harry almost forgets about the real reason he came to LA in the first place. Almost.

Until one afternoon, Liam gestures for him to stick around after they’re done and the crew is packing up and getting ready to leave. Darcy’s spending the day with Louis, so Harry waits while Liam says goodbye, trying his hardest not to stare intently when he gives Louis the world’s most awkward one armed hug. Instead, he looks away, but then all he finds to look at is Zayn and Niall, who are being just as oblivious as ever to each other’s feelings. Niall’s been trying to show Zayn how to play guitar for the last couple of weeks, but they’re not making any progress, mostly because they get far too caught up staring at their fingers every time they brush and other cheesy stuff like that. If Harry wasn’t so into romance, he’d be disgusted.

“So, uh, you got a minute?” Liam asks him, snapping Harry out of the romcom he was daydreaming of with Zayn and Niall as the main protagonists.

“Sure, what is it?” He asks, a little intrigued. He hasn’t got to hang out much with Liam on his own, since they haven’t exactly had any reason to do so, and though he’s rather fond of him, he’s also slightly terrified because he knows Liam’s horribly responsible about his business and a part of him is constantly expecting him to tell him they’re not actually gonna record his album because it’s all too casual and he likes to work with professionals.

“I… I don’t know how to say this.” Liam puts his hands in his pockets to keep them from fidgeting, and he glances around the place, as if checking that everyone’s left, which they seem to have done. There’s only a few children playing basketball, since they’re in a back alley where Louis had decided there was just enough noise from the street to make the song sound live, but it was quiet enough for them to get a clear recording. As always, he’d been right. “So, a couple days ago, I got a call from an artist saying they’d broken their contract with their current label and wanted to switch to ours. She said she’d recorded an album for them but that it was just an EP and she hadn’t signed the rights to her original songs because they hadn’t wanted them, and she wanted to know if we’d take her and let her do what she wanted like she’d heard we usually did with artists.”

Harry’s heart started beating too fast, out of control, and he wasn’t sure why.

“So I asked if she could send us a demo of her original songs, because even though she’s made a name for herself already, it’s our policy to always ask for demos no matter who it is. She came by the studio yesterday, and played me a song, and I recorded and it sounded amazing so she’s staying in the city and signing with us.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Harry has no idea what to say or do, but first he has to make sure he’s not making things up just because he wants them to be real so badly.

“It’s Taylor, isn’t it? Taylor’s in town.”

Liam nods, and Harry feels like he might faint. She’s here and he might run into her at any moment. She’s spoken to Liam, and now Harry’s speaking to Liam, and even that’s too proximity between them for him to handle.

“Yes. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. I mean, it kind of is, but- Louis told me about you two. You and Taylor, and, well, the things you’d told him. Don’t be mad at him for it, he just told me because he always tells me everything and I wanted to know why you’d come all the way from across the ocean to wander about the city.” Harry nods, not really listening to any of what Liam’s saying, because Taylor’s here. In this city. “The important bit of all this, besides the fact that she’s here and she’s kind of staying at my place for the time being, is that… I think you should listen to the song she gave me.”

Liam hands him a memory card, and Harry reaches out to take it and notices his hand is shaking rather violently. It’s good to know he’s grown completely immune to Taylor over time. Gotten over her completely and all that.

“Just. Listen to it. Because you’re bound to run into her, and I think maybe this will help you figure some things out, hopefully.”

Liam looks cautious, like he’s committing some sort of treason, and Harry realizes that he’s probably not allowed to share this, and yet he’s giving it to him. It’s a little overwhelming, how much it means to him even though he still doesn’t know what the song’s gonna be about, so he leans forward and hugs Liam. It takes him a moment to hug him back, but eventually he does.

“Thank you, Liam. For whatever this is. I really appreciate it.”

It’s a little too much, probably, hugging his sort of boss like this out of nowhere, but when they break apart, Liam doesn’t seem to have minded it, and Harry figures after all this time with Louis, he probably needed that hug just as much as Harry did.

“I honestly hope you see what I’m trying to show you with this song, Harry. Because I watched her sing it, and I could tell it meant a lot to her, and… well. You’ll see.”

Harry nods, and he grabs the memory card tightly before walking away. This might end very badly, but if that’s the case, then at least it will have truly ended for good. No more open wounds.

Or maybe this might be something else entirely, nothing like an ending at all. But Harry knows best than getting his hopes up, so he shoves the memory card in his pocket and does his best not to start running home like his heart is begging him to do so he can hear the song as soon as possible. Whatever’s in that card, it’s making it burn a hole through his pocket, and he can’t decide if that’s thrilling or terrifying. Probably both.

  


The song starts, and even just the first chord makes Harry think back to that first time he knew he loved her. It was winter, and Harry was fourteen and very lonely. His mom’s boyfriend had walked out on them again, and he could hear her downstairs trying to be quiet while sobbing, his sister mumbling comforting words. He couldn’t bring himself to go there, not when he’d just start crying too and it would be no help. He wasn’t good at this, he was good at the morning after, making his mom pancakes and acting all cheerful so that everyone would forget how sad they truly were. There was a tear threatening to spill down his cheek when he saw the little grey dot turn to green, and before he could even click on it, the window was blinking open and there she was. If it was nine pm here, it must be around five pm where she was, so she was probably just back home from school, and the first thing she’d done was come and check on him.

_“what’s up”_

Short and simple, as always.

_“he left like an hour ago”_

_“i’m sorry, that really sucks, but maybe it’s for the best, right?”_

Like it usually happened, he’d ended up going to bed at four am because that was her midnight and she never stayed up longer than that, and he just couldn’t go before she did. She’d spent all that time -what was that, seven hours?- trying to cheer him up, telling him literally everything about her day, and then Skyping him to show him the new songs she’d been working on. Watching her play, tucked into his bed at one in the morning, and the constant glances at the camera she kept on shooting, as if checking that he was still watching, that he hadn’t got bored and fallen asleep, he’d been struck by the realization. This was love. He was fourteen and in love with a girl he’d met in a country music forum. His life couldn’t be worse, or better.

Now he’s twenty two and in love with a girl who’s still singing songs that he wishes were about him, except right now, he’s starting to think maybe this one is.

It’s not quite a country song, it’s somewhere in the middle between that and pop, but whatever it is, it sounds like magic. Her voice is clear and sweet, and even if he wasn’t listening to his ex possibly singing about him, he thinks he would have still shed a tear because it’s just powerful like that.

/Missing him was dark grey all along, forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you’ve never met, but loving him was red/

He can see why Liam wanted him to hear this. Whatever confusion he had over what he’d do if he saw her again has suddenly dissipated. It was a mess, they took a stupidly wrong turn, but it’s not too late, and if Taylor’s here, then he has to go and find her and hope that everything she put into that song was as real as it feels.

/Moving on from him is impossible and I still see it all in my head, in burning red/, she belts out, and Harry stands up, taking his earplugs out and standing up from the chair he’s been sitting on for the past two hours. He has to find her, now.

There’s some rustling behind him and he turns around to see Zayn propping himself up on his elbow, blinking awake wearily.

“Harry. It’s three am. What are you doing.”

Oh. /Oh/. He lost all notion of time while listening to the song, apparently, and now that he thinks about it, he might have heard it more than once. Possibly more than five times. A lot of times. He figures it’s gonna be hard to run into Taylor casually on the streets at three in the morning, so with a pronounced sigh, he gets into bed, shoving Zayn over to make room. He turns off the light, and as soon as he closes his eyes, Zayn speaks again.

“I kissed Niall today.”

Harry turns around so fast he’s afraid he might have hurt his neck, but it doesn’t matter, not when the most important thing in the world has happened and he’s so pleased he’s willing to forgive Zayn for only telling him now when this clearly happened hours ago.

“How did that happen?”

“I don’t know.” Zayn’s got his eyes closed, but if he’s gonna try and act like he’s asleep he should probably stop talking and squirming around. “He was just there when we were waiting for you and Liam to be done talking, and he kept saying the dumbest things about that art I made for that one song of yours where he does that solo thing? He kept teasing me about it because I may have drawn his with a little too much detail and. I don’t know. I wanted to shut him up.”

It’s amazing, how he can make it sound so casual when Harry’s heart is beating out of his chest. They /kissed/. After all this time of trying to push them into each other’s arms, they finally got it together and kissed and Harry feels like floating away. Incredible. It’s everything he ever wanted- this, and a bunch of other things, but that’s not important right now.

“So you kissed him,” Harry repeats, dragging his vowels in the most annoying way he can.

“Yup.” Zayn rolls over so he’s facing the wall, but Harry doesn’t mind. He can keep grinning at the back of his head, that’s fine. “Stop making that face. Nothing else happened. We didn’t talk about it.”

“But you /kissed/,” Harry says again and by now he wouldn’t blame Zayn if he turned around and swatted him on the head, but he’s just so happy.

“Shut up,” Zayn groans, shifting even further from him, and Harry decides to do it, if only because he knows if he stops teasing him he might actually get him to tell him the details in the morning.

 

 

Because magic tends to fade with daylight, when Harry wakes up the morning after, he doesn’t feel quite as entranced by Taylor’s song anymore. It’s still amazing, but that feeling that invaded him the night before, about this song being about him and how much Taylor had suffered too being apart from him, that’s pretty much all gone. So he doesn’t show the song to Zayn, and he doesn’t say anything to Liam about, and he doesn’t run after her.

He focuses on recording his own songs, trying to shake that constant feeling of yearning off his shoulders, and doing his best to understand how Niall and Zayn can be back to pretending to be lads just being lads after they freaking kissed. It’s abnormal and he hates them for it, because he’d put all his hopes into them, and now he’s stuck in his own sad love life with no love, watching not only Liam and Louis being idiots, but now Zayn and Niall too.

Everyone’s an idiot. Everyone except for Darcy, who’s handling the whole my-parents-didn’t-really-get-back-together-even-though-I-so-thought-they-had pretty well. It’s mostly because Liam and Louis are so civil towards each other, always polite, and though Harry fears it might be getting that little girl’s hopes up to see them being so friendly and working side by side so well, he thinks that’s still better than having them being constantly broody and depressed.

It’s fine, though. Harry’s learned he can’t control anything when it comes to love, so he’s determined to just let it all play out on itself. He won’t interfere anymore, and as far as his own life is concerned, he won’t try to push things either. If he’s meant to see Taylor again, he will. If it’s been a week since he learned she was in town, recording in the same studio as him, and sleeping in Liam’s house, and they haven’t run into each other- well, that’s fate yelling at the top of its lungs to him, isn’t it.

Now that he’s made sure Harry’s not gonna spend the rest of his life sitting by himself in the corner of a dark pub drinking his sorrows away, Zayn doesn’t take him along every time he leaves the house like he used to, which is great because Harry’s had enough of watching him stare longingly at Niall. Instead, Harry goes out with Louis, who is by far one of the most fun people he’s ever been out with. They try not to get too pissed if Harry has to record in the morning, but most of the times they still manage to get pretty drunk, enough for Louis to be more ridiculous than usual, and Harry’s stomach hurts from how hard he makes him laugh. It’s fun, and whenever he starts feeling tempted to ask Liam for Taylor’s number, he calls Louis instead, and it usually works.

Tonight, however, Harry’s on his own. He went out with Zayn and Niall, but they wandered off to see some friend of theirs playing in a bar, and Harry didn’t feel like intruding, not when they were brushing shoulders every five seconds. After all this time, he’s not gonna be the one standing on the way of them getting their acts together. He’d called Louis, but he had a business thing to attend to with Liam which was important enough that they’d actually left Darcy with a babysitter, which they never did, so Harry was on left alone.

It’s alright, though. Even if by two am, when he’s about to decide to go home, Zayn texts him begging him to please not come back for another couple of hours. Harry doesn’t ask, but he’s hopeful this isn’t Zayn being an idiot and bringing a stranger home when he has a cute Irish bloke all ready to follow him wherever right next to him. It does mean he’s stuck at his bar for another couple of hours, so he leaves the quiet little booth he’d found where he could drink his beer and write in peace, and heads to the bar.

He doesn’t know what his face looks like when he sees her, but he figures it’s pretty much an exact mirror of hers. It’s her. Taylor Swift herself, standing at the bar, dressed in her red shorts and striped top, and she’s looking at him like he’s all she’s ever wanted to set her eyes upon in this life.

“Harry,” she says and her voice comes out choked, like she’s biting back a sob. Harry can relate.

“You’re here.” It’s a dumb thing to say, but Harry’s brain is failing him because she’s here, she’s standing in front of him, and she’s grinning and he has never been this happy in his entire life. It’s amazing how a couple of months ago, a part of him had wondered if maybe he’d come to hate her in time, be mad for what she’d done, for how she’d broken his heart, yet now that she’s back, he can’t remember any of those awful things he allegedly went through.

It’s a bit of a flashback to that first time she got on a plane and crossed the ocean to see him. They were seventeen, and they’d been dating for a whole year without ever getting to hold each other’s hand, so they’d worked hard and saved up as much as they could, until together they’d been able to buy her ticket. Harry can remember it as if it had been yesterday, waiting as people started to come out of the gate, and then- then Taylor had appeared, astonishing as ever.

Just like that time, she stumbles into his arms, and they hold each other so tightly Harry wonders if maybe he could have kept her if he’d held on like this the night she left.

It’s all a bit of a blur after that. He’s not that drunk, but her presence is enough to send his head spinning, and there is so much they need to talk but the moment she starts apologizing, he realizes he wants nothing more than to kiss her until his lips go sore. She doesn’t know why he’s still here, he wants to know everything she’s done and how she ended up back in LA, they both have so much to apologize for, but none of it seems to matter right then and there, so Harry leans in and kisses her, and she melts into it right away.

They can talk later.

They kiss and it feels like they’ve been underwater all this time since they last saw each other, and are now coming up for air, after months of drowning. They kiss as if their lives depend on it, and it’s a little too much apparently because the bartender sends them away from the bar, so they kiss in a dark corner, until Harry’s got his hands on her back pockets and she’s so pressed up against him it’s hard to tell where she ends and he begins.

“Take me home,” she whispers into his ear before biting his earlobe, and Harry knows this is probably a bad idea, but he can’t bring himself to care about it.

Then he actually gives it some thought and realizes it is a very bad idea because he’s still sleeping on Zayn’s bed and he’s there with someone else. He explains it to Taylor, and she frowns. It’s the longest they’ve gone without kissing since they first started.

“We can go back to mine, but I’m sleeping at my boss’s house so that might be weird, but he’s out tonight, said he had a meeting and was gonna be home really late.”

Harry doesn’t feel it’s the right time to explain he knows who Liam is and everything, so he nods and kisses her once more before grabbing her hand and leading her out of the bar. They probably make the cab driver very uncomfortable, but it’s impossible to keep their hands off each other after all this time. He’s missed her so much, her eyes, her smile, her arms and how good they are at holding him. He needs every bit of her, and if it’s wrong that he’s so ready to forgive and forget just to have her back, then it won’t be the first thing he hasn’t gotten right in his life.

The lights are out at Liam’s, so he figures he’s not back yet but they still agree to try and be quiet, just in case he’s back and sleeping already. They stumble into the kitchen tangled up in each other, and the moment Taylor’s knees hit the table, Harry lifts her so that she can sit and wrap her legs around him.

It’s not as quiet as he intended it to, and suddenly the lights are on and Harry looks around, expecting to find a very angry Liam glaring at them in his pjs.

“What the f-” Louis sits up, scrambling to get his pants up, and Liam stares at them in utter shock from where he is. On his knees. Between Louis’s legs. Harry’s immediate reaction is to cover Taylor’s eyes when he hears her gasp, though he thinks everything that needed to be covered has been covered already.

“Well. This is, uhm. Unexpected,” Liam mutters, sitting down on the floor and running his fingers through his hair as he usually does when things are way out of his control.

“I am so, so, so, so sorry, Liam, I didn’t know you’d be- I just didn’t think you’d- this is Harry, have you met Harry?” Taylor says in a hurry, her eyes still covered, and Harry freezes for a moment at the looks Liam and Louis give him.

“I, uh, we’ve met,” he stutters out, and he can feel her eyebrows raising under his fingers. “It’s complicated. But I feel we’ve walked right in the middle of something here so we should probably, like, leave. And never come back. Ever.”

This is one thing everyone in the room seems to agree on, and Harry takes a mental note to find out what exactly was going on before they interrupted, but later. Much, much later. When Louis stops looking like he’s going to murder him.

  


“So you’re recording an album,” Taylor states, and she doesn’t look as surprised as Harry expected her to. They ended up in the only cafe they could find that was still open and not full of drunk people chanting at the top of their lungs. It’s tiny and cosy, and sitting there, watching her blow on her latte, Harry feels almost relieved to find out he’s just as in love as he’s always been. She looks adorable, and he just wants to move closer so he can put his arms around her and keep her with him forever. It’s possibly not the most mature thought he’s had, he’ll admit to that.

“I am. I didn’t plan on it at all, but Louis talked me into it, and it’s been fun,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders. He knows he should sound more excited, but the thing is, seeing Taylor, he realizes he doesn’t care that much about the music. This is more important. And that’s what’s different between the two of them. It’s a horrible thought to have, so he focuses on Taylor’s hand and how it’s holding his as if everything was alright between them.

“I’m really glad, Harry, that’s great.” She couldn’t have meant it less if she’d tried, or at least it looks that way. She seems almost disappointed, and Harry feels slightly hurt. Okay, really hurt, because she’s not the only one allowed to succeed, he’s got every right to try and make it out there too. It shows on his face, clearly, because she grabs his hand tighter. “I’m sorry. I promise I really am happy for you, I just, I don’t know. I had these ideas in my head of what could happen if we got back together? And I guess they were just selfish fantasies, but it’s alright. I’m glad you’re getting to live out your dreams too.”

Harry knows if this was anyone else, at all, he’d probably be telling himself to get up and leave because he’s not here to satisfy anyone’s selfish fantasies. But it’s Taylor, and a really big part of Harry would love to make it his life’s goal to satisfy /her/ selfish fantasies. The rest of him thinks he should probably ask what those are before he commits his time on Earth to them.

“It’s not really my dream, you know. I like making music, but I never imagined myself becoming a huge singer or whatever. I mean, I’m so lucky that I get to do this and it’s definitely a better job than anything else I could have thought of, but… I wouldn’t mind hearing out those things you wanted for us. If you wanna tell me about them.”

Taylor takes a deep breath, eyes fixated on their hands that are still very much held together.

“I do want to be a singer. I want to travel the world touring and be on every stage there is. But I also- I wanna, uh. I wanna have kids.”

It takes a whole ten seconds for what she’s saying to sink in. And Harry wishes he could say he takes a moment to analyze it, but the instant he gets what she’s trying to say, there’s a grin that starts to form on his face. She’s still talking about wanting to travel on the tour bus or something, but he’s no longer listening, because he hadn’t really ever thought about what he wanted to do with his life but now that it’s been laid out on the table, he realizes it’s all he could ever wish for.

“You want me to be a stay at home dad.” He states, cutting Taylor off in the middle of a sentence, and she stares at him with wide eyes, only daring to nod. Harry grins. "Taylor. That /is/ my dream. You wanna go out and conquer the world with your music while I watch from backstage with a kid on each knee, it’s perfect.”

Taylor eyes him suspiciously, not fully convinced.

“Are you being sarcastic? Because I know you’re never sarcastic but you have been hanging out with Louis so I wouldn’t be so surprised and I really need to know.”

Harry leans in, grabbing Taylor’s other hand and staring at her as earnestly as possible.

“I’m not. I’m being as serious as man can possibly be, Taylor, I’d love to do that. And I think maybe if we’d had this conversation sooner, we could have spared both of us from a lot of heartache, but I also think I wouldn’t have known this was what I wanted if we’d had it sooner, so I guess there’s no use in thinking about all the time we’ve wasted anymore.”

He can tell from the way she’s looking at him that she’s not buying it entirely, that’s she waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he’s being as honest as he possibly can and though he figures he might have to give it some more serious thought before he jumps into it, he’s pretty sure he means every single word he’s saying.

“I only have one shoe here, alright?” he states with a serious expression, and she cracks up laughing.

“Alright. I’m going to pretend that’s something that made sense in some level, just because I’m really happy you’re actually considering doing this with me even when I feel it’s horribly unfair.”

“I feel it’s horribly unfair to you, because you’re gonna be working your ass off while I get to stay at home and play with the kids, so you see, it’s all very subjective.”

She hums her agreement, finishing up his coffee.

“What about your music, though, won’t you miss that?”

It’s quite something to see how after all this time, Harry can still see straight through her even when she’s trying her hardest to not let her feelings show. She’s nervous, as if he was going to start laughing at some point and tell her she got Punk’d. It hurts him a little, that she could think he’d do something like that, but he understands this is a really big talk they’re having and it means so much to her that she can’t help being a little afraid.

“I will always have my music. And I guess, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think Louis would be opposed to helping me out if I ever want to drop an EP, if I have music that’s like, crawling out of me, desperate to get to the world. But that’s never really been the case for me, and you know I’ve always liked it when my songs got played on a stage… by you.”

Taylor is chewing on her bottom lip, and there’s a hint of a smile that’s starting to appear on her face.

“This could actually work,” she says, and Harry smiles encouragingly. “I’m sorry I broke us up instead of bringing this up first, but… well, I didn’t think you’d want it, and I didn’t think it could work what with how strict the label was about everything. But this feels so much better. Working with the guys at Replay, it’s been amazing, and I’ve only just started recording, but they’re so committed to letting me do what I want and to help me figure out my sound and all these amazing things. It’s great.”

“I know, they are really good at what they do.” Harry nods, and he checks his watch. “Do you wanna go back home? They’re probably not doing whatever it is they were doing anymore, and it’s getting pretty late.”

“Oh god, yes, I have to get up so early tomorrow,” Taylor exclaims, getting up. “Walk me home?”

Harry grins, and follows her out of the cafe. He can’t quite believe in less than what he figures were five hours tops, he’s found his way back to Taylor and everything’s been made right between them. Well, probably not everything. But the more he thinks about, the more obvious it becomes that the only reason they ever broke up was the fact that they were gonna be apart for so long, so maybe they truly can fix things as quickly as this.

“So what’s the deal with Liam and Louis though, because I can’t wrap my head around all their drama yet,” Taylor asks, and Harry takes a deep breath, because it’s a long story, and they only have so many blocks ahead.

  
  


“It’s not what you think,” is the first thing Louis says to him the next time Harry goes into the studio. “Me and Liam. We’re not back together.”

“Way to crush a man’s dreams, Tomlinson,” Harry replies, and he goes to grab the guitar while Louis grabs some recording stuff that they need for their session.

“I don’t know why you care so much, but it’s not as easy as that, you out of all people should know that. Like, you’re not gonna tell me you’re back with Taylor just because you hooked up with her once?”

There’s a very long silence in which Harry stays absolutely still and Louis groans loudly.

“Of course you did. Bet you’re planning on getting married already and everything, back in the game as if nothing had happened.”

Harry doesn’t think now is the right time to tell him about his plans to release this one EP and then drop music so he can follow Taylor around the globe and be there for her every need. Somehow, he doesn’t feel like Louis would approve of his plan.

“I don’t know, Lou, it really was that easy for me. She said she was sorry and we both admitted we’d made a mistake letting things get in the way of us, so there was no point in staying apart when we wanted to be together.” He shrugs his shoulders, and he’s expecting Louis to sigh or facepalm or something, but instead he just stays very quiet, giving him a long look. “Don’t you want to get back together with him? Be a family again with Darcy? You’ve both admitted to the mistakes you made and you’re trying to fix them, why not do it together?”

Louis inhales through his nose very deeply, as if he’s gathering patience to deal with Harry like he does when he’s being insufferable, but this time he knows he’s not being that. He knows he’s right, and for some reason Louis refuses to accept that.

“Life isn’t as simple as your love songs, Style,” Louis says pulling a face at him, and Harry sticks his tongue out.

“Shut up and help me record my simple love songs, will you, and maybe pay attention when I play them so you can get some tips and also your head out of your ass.”

The band’s already waiting for them outside, and it’s not until Harry sees Niall that he remembers there was something else he was supposed to be fretting about, but he was so concerned about getting back with Taylor that he never even asked Zayn about it. He’s a terrible friend, and he would kick himself if he wasn’t in the process of squeezing into a car with their equipment and band members.

“So how was your night?” He asks when he realizes it’s Niall he’s pushed up against, and since they’re so close he’s pretty sure he’s inhaling every particle Niall exhales, he gets a good look at him and squeals when he sees it. “Pretty fun, I see,” he says pointing at the big purple bruise on Niall’s neck when he gathers himself enough to speak.

Everyone else in the car has turned to stare at them, and now it’s hard to see the hickey because Niall’s entire skin is flushed. He laughs loudly though, and covers it up with his hand to make everyone stop looking at it.

“It was fun, yes. Better than fun, I’d say.” His eyes are almost sparkling, and Harry would hug him if he could.

“I’m so glad, Niall. Honestly. You have no idea.”

“I think we’ve all figured out how much you enjoy living vicariously through other people’s love life, Harold,” Louis says from the front of the car and even though he can’t see him, Harry knows he’s rolling his eyes.

“It was Zayn though, right? Because if it wasn’t then I’m still glad you got laid because that’s always nice, but I would have been happier if you’d done it out of true love, like you and Zayn have.” Harry lowers his voice as much as he can, almost whispering into Niall’s ear, and Niall starts cackling before he’s even done.

“I don’t know if true love is the term for it, considering we’ve only been going out for like, twenty four hours, but yeah. It was him. Dropped by your place to see if you were there and wanted to hear this thing I thought we could do with the song we’re recording next and he was there all alone. Had a couple of beers, and then he, uh. He showed me drawings.”

“So naturally, you had to kiss him.” Harry nods knowingly, and Louis snorts from the front of the car.

“/Naturally/,” he mocks, but Niall isn’t laughing much anymore, he’s just smiling really wide.

“Naturally, yeah.” He agrees, and he grins at Harry.

There’s a pause, and then the drummer that’s sitting next to Harry shifts to look at them in the most uncomfortable way ever.

“So you’re gay then?” he asks, and Niall cackles, throwing his head back.

The car was possibly not the best way to have this conversation, but Harry’s glad he brought it up, even if he’s made everyone else aware of Niall’s undying love for Zayn unwillingly. Things are very slowly falling into place, and it feels good. Only one thing’s missing, but the more he looks at the back of Louis’s head, the more sure he is that the last piece will fit in very easily.

  


Harry’s EP comes out on a Thursday. Taylor and him finish the first song they’ve written together since their break up that same afternoon, hours before his release party.

Looking back on it, it feels like it all happened too fast. He can still remember that first day walking alone with his suitcase, knocking on Zayn’s door. Meeting Louis. He hasn’t ever smelled as much of booze as he did that night, and he’s never looked as sad either.

It feels like everything’s much better than Harry could have ever expected it to be, especially on that night. He’s got his tiny CD with five songs and a booklet with lyrics and beautiful artwork. He’s got Taylor, and she’s got a full length album she’s devoting her every second to, writing her songs and putting her whole heart into each of them. He’s got Zayn and Niall, sort of, because now that they are finally together they seem to be focused on making up for lost time and it’s hard to get them to stop making out for more than five seconds.

He just really, really wishes things were this good for everyone. It’s not the most mature feeling, he knows, because it’s not so much about wanting his friends to be happy as it is wanting Darcy to have her parents together and in peace, because he knows how great they could be if they would stop messing around. He knows how great they were, and he firmly believes that if their problems were about work and they’ve been working together again for months now in perfect syntony, that must mean they should get back together. But Louis won’t hear him out, and Liam has taken to literally putting his fingers in his ears and humming really loudly when he starts talking about it, so there’s nothing he can do about it but wait and pray.

Since it’s a tiny album, the release party is also tiny with a tiny guestlist, and at Darcy’s request, it’s being held at Liam’s so she can attend it and go to bed whenever she feels like it. It’s almost entirely because of her that Harry’s bought a cake, balloons and party hats, but also a little because of Niall and Taylor, who have spent the last days bonding over how to throw a perfect celebration and apparently agreeing on how making it look a four year old’s birthday is the way to go. The point is, Harry’s really bad at saying no and deep down he really likes balloons, so while Taylor tries to choose which dress to wear, he drives to Liam’s with a car stuffed with party things.

“I feel like I should be more surprised about this, but I’m really not,” is all he can say when he gets out of the car and finds Louis getting boxes out of his car. He rolls his eyes and snorts, but there’s no real heat to it, there could never be when he’s looking so happy Harry fears he’ll start floating away on his own little bubble of joy.

“Shut up and help me with these?” Louis asks, a little too nicely for his usual self, and Harry considers making him actually say please at the very least. “If you help me with these, I’ll give you and Taylor my old apartment so you can stop annoying Zayn and Niall.”

Harry drops his false pretenses instantly, grabbing a box and following him into the house obediently. The minute the door opens, he hears Darcy coming running down the stairs.

“Harry, did you hear? Daddy’s back home, did you hear?”, her high pitched screams carry down the hallway, and as always, Harry can tell just from looking at the back of Louis’s head that he’s grinning bigger than ever.

“May I ask how it happened?” He ventures, and Louis shakes his head, without even turning to look at him.

“You just want me to say it’s because of you, and I’m not gonna say that, so no, you may not.”

“But it did happen because of me.” Harry hums to himself, wishing he could pat his own back.

“Maybe,” Louis concedes when he gets into the room, dropping the box on the floor right next to Liam, who’s busy unpacking other boxes.

“Did it happen because of me, Liam?” Harry asks, sitting down on the bed and ignoring Louis’s glare as he goes out to fetch more boxes.

“Of course it did,” Liam smiles, and Harry breathes out in relief, holding his arms open to receive Darcy when she finally runs to his lap.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://ofstellardust.tumblr.com) & [twitter](http://twitter.com/ofstellardust) if you wanna come and yell at me for something


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